A poem for Tuesday

These two things came to me within days of each other. There's a dreadful beauty to these kinds of scenes, a tragic wrenching. And I suppose we're drawn to them because they're such vital pinpoints in our lives and in the life of an animal, and the connection so immediate it brings us down from wherever we soar and makes us feel more animal, and more human too, and fully present for it.

Peregrine Honig's The Twin Fawns"I came upon twin fawns in the display case of a mom and pop toy and science store in kansas city, missouri. it took me two years to win the trust of the shop owner and save the money to buy them. a taxidermist spotted a dead deer by the side of the road. he stopped to properly dispose of the body and realized she was pregnant. he opened her and found near full-term twin fawns, he removed and preserved them." - Twin Fawns, via The New Inquiry

Traveling Through The DarkTraveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.